[quote]groo wrote:<<< Ok I’ll start with this. Everything everyone holds to be true that is not simply some synthetic statement or groups of them, is at least partially believed from tradition or emotion. Nothing or at least almost nothing is believed to be true from purely logical reasons.
[/quote]Please define for me, “synthetic statement, tradition and emotion”. I’m asking you honestly. This seemed a bit strained ands vague.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]groo wrote:<<< Ok I’ll start with this. Everything everyone holds to be true that is not simply some synthetic statement or groups of them, is at least partially believed from tradition or emotion. Nothing or at least almost nothing is believed to be true from purely logical reasons.
[/quote]Please define for me, “synthetic statement, tradition and emotion”. I’m asking you honestly. This seemed a bit strained ands vague.
[/quote]
Ok I misspoke a bit. I meant analytic or I suppose syntthetic analytic statements. Something like All bachelors are unmarried…would be an analytic statement. These are always true. There are synthetic analytic statements that are true as well but synthetic statements require observation or empirical evidence so I wanted to stay away from them in this since its partially about the reliability of sensory data. So basically arithmetic is a grouping of analytic statements.
People have an emotional response to stimulus be it a loud noise or a philosophical argument prior to a logical one. The research on this thinks it may have been an evolutionary benefit or whatever if you don’t believe in evolution simply its the way we were created. So prior to any logical response to an idea you first have an emotional one which often shapes the logical…you are in fact predisposed to find the idea you find more emotionally appealing to be the more logical.
Also it can be more simply stated as people like ideas that make them happy or give them pleasure and have a vested interest in these ideas being objectively true.
You could say that divine inspiration would be an example of this in my opinion. Its certainly more appealing to pathos than logos.
Tradition. Its why most people have a religious belief. Or how people learn social mores. I don’t feel there is any great need to explain this one.
In the end is it fair to say that like Elder Forlife you’re willing to live with ultimate objective uncertainty while plodding through life in perpetual and universal dependence on your own self proclaimed pragmatic certainty? In his case declaring before all the world the “courage” of this incoherent existence. He is one smart dude so don’t take me as ridiculing him. He is simply a walking infomercial for autonomous man. Man living in willful independence from the God who alone can provide certainty and purpose.
“Nothing is certain, but I live as if it were”. I that’s not schizoid incoherence then nothing is, but that is the unavoidable intellectual pit into which agnosticism plunges us. Simply comforting ones self with probablity is the very defintion of the proverbial “boy whistling in the dark”.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
In the end is it fair to say that like Elder Forlife you’re willing to live with ultimate objective uncertainty while plodding through life in perpetual and universal dependence on your own self proclaimed pragmatic certainty? In his case declaring before all the world the “courage” of this incoherent existence. He is one smart dude so don’t take me as ridiculing him. He is simply a walking infomercial for autonomous man. Man living in willful independence from the God who alone can provide certainty and purpose.
“Nothing is certain, but I live as if it were”. I that’s not schizoid incoherence then nothing is, but that is the unavoidable intellectual pit into which agnosticism plunges us. Simply comforting ones self with probablity is the very defintion of the proverbial “boy whistling in the dark”. [/quote]
And wishing and hoping there is something more beyond the natural world. Imagining a comforting fable. The ability to believe as true one’s own particular myth. You don’t know that a Christian god is real. You have faith he is. That is somehow better? At the very least its the same. I think its worse because largely in practice true believers, those who practice what they preach though rare can be terribly damaging.
I know this. We are all going to die. And it certainly does suck because no one wants to. But I think its better to do the best one can to leave a positive legacy on earth and realize that this is it as scary as that is versus living in a false hope that there is some other form of existence where the just will be rewarded and the evil punished. Much easier to hope for that than to try to change things here.
Frankly I hope you are right 
, well not you exactly but someone with a more inclusive theology. But I wish a lot of things were true. I wish there was a Santa Claus, and an Easter Bunny(hell I’d love to go back to worshiping Esotre the proper way); I wish people would be more content with what they had instead of being filled with envy and hate; I wish everyone got what they deserved, but thats not the case.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
In the end is it fair to say that like Elder Forlife you’re willing to live with ultimate objective uncertainty while plodding through life in perpetual and universal dependence on your own self proclaimed pragmatic certainty? In his case declaring before all the world the “courage” of this incoherent existence. He is one smart dude so don’t take me as ridiculing him. He is simply a walking infomercial for autonomous man. Man living in willful independence from the God who alone can provide certainty and purpose.
“Nothing is certain, but I live as if it were”. I that’s not schizoid incoherence then nothing is, but that is the unavoidable intellectual pit into which agnosticism plunges us. Simply comforting ones self with probablity is the very defintion of the proverbial “boy whistling in the dark”. [/quote]
Or you can close your eyes and throw yourself into the a document created by man, that men do not even agree upon.
Give me one compelling reason to believe the “word of god” is in fact, the word of god.
You cannot.
[quote]TheBodyGuard wrote:<<< Give me one compelling reason to believe the “word of god” is in fact, the word of god.
You cannot. [/quote]
And ding, ding, ding right on schedule we arrive at precisely the same station I always do with Elder Forlife. Why, pray tell, would I believe I could prove to somebody, that is, render certain, ANYTHING, when they themselves have already told me that it is not possible because nothing can be certain? I have no time for more at the moment, sorry guys.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
And ding, ding, ding right on schedule we arrive at precisely the same station I always do with Elder Forlife. Why, pray tell, would I believe I could prove to somebody, that is render certain, ANYTHING, when they themselves have already told me that it is not possible because nothing can be certain? I have no time for more at the moment, sorry guys.[/quote
Eh but now you are trying to go back to the field of formal argument when you asked what I know personally.
OK this I think is what the Bodyguard and a few other people are trying to get through to you about premises.
There are three types of potential problems with premises. The first, and most obvious, is that a premise can be wrong. If one argues, for example, that evolutionary theory is false because there are no transitional fossils, that argument is unsound because the premise there are no transitional fossils is false. In fact there are copious transitional fossils.
Another type of premise error occurs when one or more premises is an unwarranted assumption. The premise may or may not be true, but it has not been established sufficiently to serve as a premise for an argument. Identifying all the assumptions upon which an argument is dependent is often the most critical step in analyzing an argument. Frequently, different conclusions are arrived at because of differing assumptions.
Often people will choose the assumptions that best fit the conclusion they prefer. In fact, psychological experiments show that most people start with conclusions they desire, then reverse engineer arguments to support them through a process called rationalization.
One way to resolve the problem of using assumptions as premises is to carefully identify and disclose those assumptions up front. Such arguments are often called hypothetical, or prefaced with the statement Let’s assume for the sake of argument. Also, if two people examine their arguments and realize they are using different assumptions as premises, then at least they can agree to disagree. They will realize that their disagreement cannot be resolved until more information is available to clarify which assumptions are more likely to be correct.
The third type of premise difficulty is the most insidious: the hidden premise. I have seen this listed as a logical fallacy the unstated major premise, but it is more accurate to consider it here. Obviously, if a disagreement is based upon a hidden premise, then the disagreement will be irresolvable. So when coming to an impasse in resolving differences, it is a good idea to go back and see if there are any implied premises that have not been addressed.
Even if we hypothetically agree your premises are all correct you suffer from a few logical fallacies. Mainly Ad ignorantiam.
You use this in your reduction of what I know, likely for forlife too but I don’t know what he claims: Reductio ad absurdum.
Your whole argument for god’s existence seems to me to be a combination of No True Scotsman along with an argument from final consequences tied up in scripture to make it obtuse. I’d also say your definition of god is a tautology.
You have not yet perceived the noose that is at this moment around your neck.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
You have not yet perceived the noose that is at this moment around your neck. [/quote]
All truth goes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Then it is violently opposed. Finally, it is accepted as self evident.
Made it to stage 2 eh?
[quote]groo wrote:
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
You have not yet perceived the noose that is at this moment around your neck. [/quote]
All truth goes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Then it is violently opposed. Finally, it is accepted as self evident.
Made it to stage 2 eh?
[/quote]You’re a good sport man LOL! Actually truth has no stages. It’s eternal. I’ll hopefully have more time later.
[quote]groo wrote:<<< Eh but now you are trying to go back to the field of formal argument when you asked what I know personally. >>>[/quote]I missed this earlier. I do not make this distinction. Every last syllable you ever read from me will be about what anybody really believes. Regardless of what “formal argumentation” blah blah blah yada yada yada that anybody tries to stroke my intellect with, they WILL open their eyes every morning and take every step through every day according to what they really actually believe. In other words they will simply assume logic and certainty with every blink of their eyes.
They will eat, drink, work, play, learn, love, hate and die all the time firmly clinging to logic and certainty about which you have yourself so profoundly stated: “Or at the very least I act as if I believe this. Pragmatically everyone does.”. Amen and amen. Indeed they do and in so doing they unavoidably proclaim themselves creatures of the all governing God of heaven by whose comprehensive decree they inescapably live, move and have their being. They can ARGUE “courageous agnosticism” with me all day long, but they LIVE what they REALLY believe which is the diametric opposite of all their theoretical bluster.
They can’t help it. It is what they are at their core. Reasoning creatures created as finite logical replicas of their ultra-logical creator. That image is dead in sin and hence will believe absolutely anything except the truth about itself. Man once saw clearly in father Adam, but has since put out his own eyes and while presently blind, try as he might he still cannot forgot what it was like when he could see. He gropes in the darkness of his now objective uncertainty while being forced to operate in the now irrational memories of his once perfectly rational pragmatic certainty.
The cross and resurrection of Christ brings these two together again at last. The unavoidable foundation-less pragmatic certainty everyone is forced to live in has been once again plugged back into it’s original source AND upgraded to the maximum. Whereas Adam walked this earth WITH God, God Himself walks this earth IN me. Oh my friend, yer a smart kid, but it don’t mean squat while you persist in spitting in the face of the God to whom you owe everything you are. Everything you’ve posted to me is built on my foundation that you refuse to concede is even there.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]groo wrote:<<< Eh but now you are trying to go back to the field of formal argument when you asked what I know personally. >>>[/quote]I missed this earlier. I do not make this distinction. Every last syllable you ever read from me will be about what anybody really believes. Regardless of what “formal argumentation” blah blah blah yada yada yada that anybody tries to stroke my intellect with, they WILL open their eyes every morning and take every step through every day according to what they really actually believe. In other words they will simply assume logic and certainty with every blink of their eyes.
They will eat, drink, work, play, learn, love, hate and die all the time firmly clinging to logic and certainty about which you have yourself so profoundly stated: “Or at the very least I act as if I believe this. Pragmatically everyone does.”. Amen and amen. Indeed they do and in so doing they unavoidably proclaim themselves creatures of the all governing God of heaven by whose comprehensive decree they inescapably live, move and have their being. They can ARGUE “courageous agnosticism” with me all day long, but they LIVE what they REALLY believe which is the diametric opposite of all their theoretical bluster.
They can’t help it. It is what they are at their core. Reasoning creatures created as finite logical replicas of their ultra-logical creator. That image is dead in sin and hence will believe absolutely anything except the truth about itself. Man once saw clearly in father Adam, but has since put out his own eyes and while presently blind, try as he might he still cannot forgot what it was like when he could see. He gropes in the darkness of his now objective uncertainty while being forced to operate in the now irrational memories of his once perfectly rational pragmatic certainty.
The cross and resurrection of Christ brings these two together again at last. The unavoidable foundation-less pragmatic certainty everyone is forced to live in has been once again plugged back into it’s original source AND upgraded to the maximum. Whereas Adam walked this earth WITH God, God Himself walks this earth IN me. Oh my friend, yer a smart kid, but it don’t mean squat while you persist in spitting in the face of the God to whom you owe everything you are. Everything you’ve posted to me is built on my foundation that you refuse to concede is even there.
[/quote]
Sorry I haven’t had the time to participate in these discussions as I would like, but groo and others have done a great job.
Tirib, here’s the problem with your logic.
You’re correct that all of us act on faith. We don’t know the sun will rise tomorrow, but we behave as if it will. We don’t know that we’re not some figment of a sleeping giant’s imagination, but we behave as if we’re real. We don’t know that we will still have a job next year, but we act as if we will.
However, some of us recognize our faith for what it is. We realize it is only a probabilistic guess, based on what we can observe and experience, and we are honest enough to admit that we could be wrong.
In contrast, you (and not just you, of course, but most believers, including those who worship a different god than you) insist that your god MUST be real, and refuse to consider even the remotest possibility that you might be mistaken. Your beliefs are based on assumptions like everyone else, but you claim these assumptions are indisputable facts rather than recognizing them for what they really are.
Faith is not perfect knowledge. Faith, by definition, can be wrong.
The faith which is the gift of the living God Himself and of which Christ is the author and finisher is in fact perfect knowledge that cannot be wrong. Faith by your definition is just another word for uncertainty and cannot be right.
No apologies necessary BTW though I wept for days after you disappeared right in the middle of one the best discussions ever here in my opinion. Make no mistake, as wrong as I believe you are about these thing you’re so very right about, I’m being serious. I was counting the minutes til that Tuesday when I thought you were comin back. Then you didn’t show for a while and I went from being bummed to concerned.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
The faith which is the gift of the living God Himself and of which Christ is the author and finisher is in fact perfect knowledge that cannot be wrong. Faith by your definition is just another word for uncertainty and cannot be right.
No apologies necessary BTW though I wept for days after you disappeared right in the middle of one the best discussions ever here in my opinion. Make no mistake, as wrong as I believe you are about these thing you’re so very right about, I’m being serious. I was counting the minutes til that Tuesday when I thought you were comin back. Then you didn’t show for a while and I went from being bummed to concerned.[/quote]
Here’s a decent definition of faith from Wiki:
[quote]Faith is trust, hope and belief in the goodness,
trustworthiness or reliability of a person, concept or entity. It can
also refer to beliefs that are not based on proof (e.g. faith that a
child will grow up to be a good person). Religious faith is a belief
in a transcendent reality, a religious teacher, a set of teachings or
a Supreme Being. Generally speaking, it is offered as a means by which
the truth of the proposition, “things will turn out well in the end,”
can be enjoyed in the present and secured in the future. Religious
faith appeals to transcendent reality, or that reality which is beyond
the range of normal physical experience (e.g. the future).
Transcendent reality, in this view, constitutes a realm which is off
limits to material measurement and other rigors of scientific inquiry
such as falsifiability and reproducibility. Philosophical reflection
on the nature of theistic and religious faith has produced different
accounts or models of its nature. The concept of faith is a broad one:
at its most general ‘faith’ means much the same as ‘trust’.[/quote]
Nowhere does it say that faith is knowledge. If faith were knowledge,
we wouldn’t need a term to differentiate it from knowledge.
I agree we had a great discussion going, hopefully we can pick it up
again at some point. We were getting to the very foundation of
epistemology, which recognizes that all beliefs are ultimately based
on faith (i.e., unprovable assumptions) rather than facts.
The real question is, recognizing the inevitability of our ignorance,
what do we do about it?
[quote]Elder Forlife wrote:<<< another thoroughly sound post when viewed from every standpoint but mine >>>[/quote]Here’s God’s definition of faith which is the entire 11th chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews. In my beloved NASB translation.
http://nasb.scripturetext.com/hebrews/11.htm
[quote]forlife wrote:<<< The real question is, recognizing the inevitability of our ignorance,
what do we do about it?[/quote] [quote]<<< if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. >>>[/quote]Romans 10 around 8,9 and 10
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]Elder Forlife wrote:<<< another thoroughly sound post when viewed from every standpoint but mine >>>[/quote]Here’s God’s definition of faith which is the entire 11th chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews. In my beloved NASB translation.
http://nasb.scripturetext.com/hebrews/11.htm
[quote]forlife wrote:<<< The real question is, recognizing the inevitability of our ignorance,
what do we do about it?[/quote] [quote]<<< if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved; for with the heart a person believes, resulting in righteousness, and with the mouth he confesses, resulting in salvation. >>>[/quote]Romans 10 around 8,9 and 10
[/quote]
You’re answering my question in circular fashion, with a text that is based on unprovable assumptions.
You are adept at shining the light into the dark corners of other belief systems, but accept on faith that cockroaches aren’t scurrying in the shadows of your own belief system.
Here’s the thing, Tirib. As a Mormon, I prayed sincerely to know if my church was true. And god told me it was true, through the undeniable power of the holy ghost. I frequently cited 1 Corinthians 2 to help people understand how god communicates truth through the power of his spirit. I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Joseph Smith was a true prophet, and the LDS church was god’s church. When people asked me how I knew, I told them that when god speaks to you, you just know and cannot deny it.
You remind me a lot of myself, which is why I can’t accept, “I just know” as an answer. The truth is that none of us really knows, however powerful our spiritual experiences, and however sincere we may be.
[quote]forlife wrote:<<< Here’s the thing, Tirib. As a Mormon, I prayed sincerely to know if my church was true. And god told me it was true, through the undeniable power of the holy ghost. >>>[/quote]As a Mormon you were just as dead in trespasses and sins as you are now and that very prayer was itself sin. God has already stated in His Word that mormonism is false. God has never told one Mormon that an idolatrous polytheistic religion is true. You have never yet been alive Elder Forlife. Never.
That’s what you keep missing. Once more. Christianity is not the acquiescence to a set of intellectual or even spiritual propositions among competing options. Being a religious conservative does not make one a Christian. It is the sovereign resurrection of a human soul from actual death to actual life. The same way that those who are naturally dead cannot interact with the kingdom of this world, all children of Adam are born into that spiritual death and are unable to interact with the kingdom of God. That is until He Himself births them into new life in that very kingdom by virtue of the indwelling presence of the King Himself.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
[quote]forlife wrote:<<< Here’s the thing, Tirib. As a Mormon, I prayed sincerely to know if my church was true. And god told me it was true, through the undeniable power of the holy ghost. >>>[/quote]As a Mormon you were just as dead in trespasses and sins as you are now and that very prayer was itself sin. God has already stated in His Word that mormonism is false. God has never told one Mormon that an idolatrous polytheistic religion is true. You have never yet been alive Elder Forlife. Never.
That’s what you keep missing. Once more. Christianity is not the acquiescence to a set of intellectual or even spiritual propositions among competing options. Being a religious conservative does not make one a Christian. It is the sovereign resurrection of a human soul from actual death to actual life. The same way that those who are naturally dead cannot interact with the kingdom of this world, all children of Adam are born into that spiritual death and are unable to interact with the kingdom of God. That is until He Himself births them into new life in that very kingdom by virtue of the indwelling presence of the King Himself.
[/quote]
Ah, gnosticism, nice.
[quote]orion wrote:<<< Ah, gnosticism, nice.[/quote]I can’t think of any reason why you should, but you clearly have no knowledge of either gnosticism or Christianity.
Just out of curiosity, could you show me that you’re really, truly alive ? How would you do it ?
could you concretely define, explain or describe what you means by “interact with the kindgom of God”